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Group 5

Mod:  Saquib Syed

Scribe: Jessica Do, Jordan Wollenman

Archivist/Uploader: Mei Sulistio

QC: Alexis Edwards

Photographer: Jessica Do

Artist Statement: For our transformative work we decided to imitate the format of the recaps to answer the questions. We put together the answers during our discussion and put it together along with reactions photos and photos of our reaction to those photos to make it a little more ~authentic~.

 H E W W O and welcome to group 5’s recap of this week’s questions! *:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

 honestly loveeee this screen shot lmao (￣ω￣)

This video was super helpful to our understanding of Kdrama. They start off the video with a few questions from their audience and then move onto the main topic of the video. While speaking about the cross dressing trope javabeans clarified, “Korean Dramas are far from the only ones to do this” (20:20). This is true, as most people have encountered tropes here and there. I mean, come on, they’re everywhere in the media: the popular guy falling for the wallflower, the love-at-first-sight, so on and so forth. But javabeans and girlfriday helps us explore trope formulas that are uniquely Kdrama. The video contextualizes Kdramas by using well-known tropes. This allows people to understand what Kdramas are about while keeping the subject focused on Kdrama itself. Two of our team members didn’t have any exposures to Kdrama and found it reaaaally great to watch this video and be able to understand more about the patterns and plotlines in Kdramas.

 Recapping the Kdrama requires a lottttt of work. More so than just being fluent in both Korean and English, it is essential to know the slang and culture surrounding the drama too. Take for example Dhobi ki Kutti’s fic. If you simply Google translate the characters, it’s going to give you words like “vegetation” for पुरवाई (Syed kindly informed our group that this word meant “Easterly wind”. Phew. That’s one less question on our mind). Google translate won’t give you the double meanings and context. In that fic, this aspect highlighted how knowing the language is not enough to understand cultural references. Fansubbers and fandubbers must be able to understand these references and contexts to make the Kdrama understandable for English-speaking audiences (aka the Blind-Idiot Translation trope).

                  As far as why fans do this and the “why”? Oh, why does van Gogh paint? For the love and passion, if nothing else. Well, that, and exposure of their favorite forms of media. Since Kdramas are kind of a niche interest, it’s always the desire of fans to create more fans. This creates a fan gift economy, as mentioned by Turk and Hellekson (◕‿◕)

 In terms of aspects of U.S. feminism seen in both recaps, as a group, we felt that the recap for Gaksital was very by-the-book, as in, the recap relayed the happenings of the episode. There were opinions from javabeans, but it wasn’t much related to feminism. (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

The lead in Sungkyunkwan is feminist in that she’s doing what she can to better herself instead of simply accepting society’s or culture’s expectations as a woman. Some of the ideas that girlfriday references are echoing ideas in U.S. feminism. For example, she says, “Sun-joon sneaks a peek in the red book of hetero-normative instincts, and his eyeballs nearly pop out”. This idea of heteronormativity stems from U.S. feminism terms. In another place, girlfriday reference an idea of sex that is reflected in U.S. feminism, too.

“I love how in dramas people always freak out about a man and a woman being locked in a place overnight, because “something” might happen. It’s the funniest euphemism to me, because they always make it sound like sex is a “thing” that happens to people, like catching a cold or something. It’s hilarious. Can’t two people just choose to have sexy fun times?”

This idea that sex should be able to be a fun choice is reminiscent of U.S. sex-positivity. Girlfriday also made comments throughout about the tropes found in the episode, and a lot of those tropes stem from U.S. feminist media studies. (✧ω✧)

Having a guide explaining Kdrama can be a double-edged sword; it all depends on the skills and intents of the guide that determines whether it is a decolonizing or Orientalizing experience. In the recaps that we read for this discussion, we were agreed in that it was primarily a decolonizing experience. For example, javabeans’ summary of Gaksital begins with several paragraphs describing the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early part of the 20th century, not only from a historical context, but from the cultural context of a people resisting a foreign power. “Gaksital is set in the 1930s, the independence movement in full swing. We can see how rich the tableau is, with our main character being born into the occupation and having a different perspective on it than, say, his father’s generation, who lived through the early movement and gave it life.” (javabeans). Javabeans and girlfriday both did well in performing not only a plot-by-plot recap, but also the meaning of a character’s reaction as it pertains to the Korean culture of the time. By making these experiences relatable, this served as a decolonizing experience because it maintains the important aspects of Korean culture, rather than gloss them over or try to erase (or colonize) them. This relatability helps minimize making these reactions and other aspects from seeming “foreign” or the “otherness” that characterizes an Orientalizing experience.

We also touched upon the kind of recappers that would make the action Orientalizing instead of decolonizing. It seems that the three members of our group familiar with Kdramas and Kfandoms agree that when someone who has no prior knowledge of the culture and media do a react or recap, it is Orientalizing because they’re just trying to profit off the exoticism and hype. *sighssss* (￣︿￣)

 Works Cited:

dramabeans. “7 of Our Favorite K-drama Tropes” YouTube, girlfriday and javabeans, 21 Nov. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK6jqakqh0M

javabeans. “Gaksital (Bridal Mask): Episode 1 » Dramabeans Korean Drama Recaps.” Dramabeans, 30 Jan. 2012, www.dramabeans.com/2012/05/gaksital-bridal-mask-episode-1/.

girlfriday. “Sungkyunkwan Scandal: Episode 12 » Dramabeans Korean Drama Recaps.” Dramabeans, 12 Oct. 2010, www.dramabeans.com/2010/10/sungkyunkwan-scandal-episode-12/.

Hellekson, Karen. 2009. “A Fannish Field of Value.” Cinema Journal 48 No 4. 113-118. Turk, Tisha. 2014. "Fan Work: Labor, Worth, and Participation in Fandom's Gift Economy." In "Fandom and/as Labor," edited by Mel Stanfill and Megan Condis, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2014.0518

Photos Included:

Spool, Ari. “Confused Mr. Krabs / When You Wake Up From a Nap.” Know Your Meme, 19 Jan. 2018, knowyourmeme.com/memes/confused-mr-krabs-when-you-wake-up-from-a-nap.

Vindaz. “Creepy Condescending Wonka” imgflip, Meme Generator, January 2016, https://imgflip.com/i/w6ldf

“HD Mspaint | Thinking Face Emoji 🤔.” Know Your Meme, 14 Jan. 2018, knowyourmeme.com/photos/1256183-thinking-face-emoji-%F0%9F%A4%94.

javabeans. “Gaksital (Bridal Mask): Episode 1 » Dramabeans Korean Drama Recaps.” Dramabeans, 30 Jan. 2012, www.dramabeans.com/2012/05/gaksital-bridal-mask-episode-1/.

girlfriday. “Sungkyunkwan Scandal: Episode 12 » Dramabeans Korean Drama Recaps.” Dramabeans, 12 Oct. 2010, www.dramabeans.com/2010/10/sungkyunkwan-scandal-episode-12/

Best_of_Grindr. “Every time [user] and I bump into each other 👯”* Instagram, 3 June, 2016. www.instagram.com/p/BGNJMT3BtzM/.

 Group Evaluation: Everyone did a great job at communicating as well as editing all responses. We appreciated how everyone was able to guide one another through answers as well as specifications since not all of us were very familiar with Korean dramas and some of the material was harder to get for some of us than others. We felt as if everyone did their part in collaborated greatly! There was a great amount of collective creativity and everything was put together with virtually no trouble. Special thanks to Jessica for the cool idea of taking pictures of us throughout our collab session and us reacting to screen grabs!

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me last year: on my way to hotness, a little mentally unstable

me this year: hot as hell, completely off the rails

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Hamda Al Fahim dresses

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